Story: Tom Taylor

Art: Clayton Henry and Jordie Bellaire

$3.99, 32 pages

DC Comics

What It Is: The relaunch of the Jon Kent as Superman title to coincide with the DAWN OF DC, which is…an event? Or a reboot? Is there a difference anymore and does anybody care?

The Good: Ignore all the reboot/relaunch crap if you can—this is a beautiful book.

No surprises there. Both Henry and Bellaire are in top-of-their-game mode and it’d be hard to find a better team for larger-than-life superhero drama. The art is clean and action-packed, while the talk-y bits convey emotion and natural acting. And the villain has real end-of-the-world menace dripping off of him.

A few years ago, when DC and Marvel divvied up a few hotshot writers with lucrative exclusive deals, this Aussie may not have had the track record of Cates or Ewing, or the flashy awards of King, but Tom Taylor was The Big Get of that whole enterprise. Read his current run on NIGHTWING if you don’t know what I’m talking about—it’s A+ material.

There’s been this dumb myth for years that Superman is hard to write. Taylor makes it easy and proves with this issue, and the Jon Kent series that preceded it, how silly that notion is. Give him human problems, surround him with interesting, developed characters, and give him stuff to fly around and punch apart.

Taylor sets up this series with highlights from the characters past and a glimpse of the fight, and the stakes, to come.

I won’t complain about the aged-up Jon Kent. It’s been done to death. This takes some of that and uses it as motivation to move the story forward. You know, how monthly comics work, building upon what’s come before.

The Bad: Not much really. The ROAD TO INJUSTICCE tag on the cover is…well troubling is maybe too strong of a word for it, but we’ve seen INJUSTICE before and written by Taylor. I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt that he has some different spin on it and this won’t be like that stretch of years when Marvel was plotting their storylines by cribbing their own previous WHAT IF..? issues.

The Score: 9 out of 10 capes

Further Reading: Tom Taylor’s (and friends’) EARTH-2 stuff for DC was criminally underrated at the time and two (three? Who knows?) reboots later, it’s hard to see the relevance. Forget all that—it was good comics. Clayton Henry’s Valiant Comics work is top tier. ARCHER & ARMSTRONG and HARBINGER WARS are stellar, but check out IVAR, TIMEWALKER if you want fun, balls-out science fiction.